Hippies​—Who Are They?

YOU have seen them​—if not in person, then in the news media. They are usually young men and women. They wear their hair long, and the men frequently have beards. Their clothing often includes beads, bell-bottom trousers, unusual jackets and headgear. They may wear sandals or go barefoot.

These are the “hippies.” Most people shrug their shoulders and shake their heads when encountering them. Some dismiss their behavior as just the antics of headstrong youth. Others view their behavior as sheer nonsense and would deal with them very harshly.

Who are these hippies? What do they hope to gain by their unusual behavior? Why have they chosen this way of life? Does the movement have any real meaning for our time?

In order to answer such questions, it would be well to understand that hippies cannot all be lumped together into one category. For example, when you hear of violence triggered by young persons dressed like hippies, do these represent the majority? No, they are the minority​—political activists who feel that violence is justified as a means to an end.

However, most hippies do not believe in violence or killing as a means to an end; they are peaceful. Others are “drug” hippies. These may start by smoking marijuana (“pot”), but often move on to stronger drugs such as the stimulant methedrine (“speed”), peyote, LSD or heroin. Then there are “spiritual” hippies. They seek guidance through various forms of religion, particularly through Eastern religions such as Zen Buddhism, the gurus (Hindu “holy men”) and astrology.

Also, there are the “plastic” or weekend hippies. These dress, act and talk like hippies but are not wholly dedicated to the movement. They still rely on society (the “Establishment”) for employment and conform to it in varying degrees.

Of course, any hippie may be a combination of these types. For instance, he may be for peace, practice astrology, and also be a drug addict. Indeed, a large proportion of hippies do use drugs.

Is there a ‘common denominator’ among hippies? Yes. It is their rejection of the standards and authority of the older generation. In small or large measure they reject the guidance of governments, parents and orthodox religions. Also, they have contempt for the economic systems.

Where do hippies come from? It would be easy to dismiss them all by assuming they are simply foolish or ignorant young people intent on mischief. And no doubt there are plenty of that kind among the hippies, just as there are among other social groups.

However, most of the earlier hippies came from “good” middle-class homes. Some came from wealthy families. Many were well-educated and informed; indeed, often more than those who were their critics. One study revealed that 68 percent had a college education, 44 percent had a college father and 46 percent a college mother.

True, some hippies are emotionally disturbed youths. As one investigator said: “Some of those vacant stares you see on youthful faces belong not to the drug-crazed but to the psychotic.” However, these do not make up the majority​—no more than mentally unbalanced persons make up the majority of any social group.

Most hippies, then, are as Life magazine of November 7, 1969, noted, a “counter culture” from “middle-class white youth.” But why have families who have more money, better homes and educations produced a crop of young people who completely reject the values of the older generation?

What Are the Hippies Saying?

WHAT has caused many of these young people to embark on the strange and difficult life of a hippie?

When we listen to what hippies themselves are saying, a definite pattern emerges. What is that pattern? When asked why they have chosen this course of life, many hippies give the same simple answer: “WORLD CONDITIONS.”

World Conditions

Today, young persons are better informed than ever. They are very much aware of what is going on in the world. They see among the nations great anguish, injustice, poverty, hatred and hypocrisy. They see that world leaders often do not solve man’s problems peacefully, but drench the earth with blood. And whose blood particularly? You know the answer: it is the blood of younger persons. They are asked to pay the supreme price for the mistakes of others.

That is why John W. Gardner, a former presidential cabinet member in the United States, said: “This generation will not accept solutions that are precooked in the back room of the Establishment.” No, many young persons today simply do not accept the standard explanations for the horrible things that have happened in our time.

Typically, a young woman acknowledged that world conditions led her, and others, to become hippies by saying:

“I was from a well-to-do ‘nice’ home. But I moved out. Why? Mostly because it was so apparent that not only was hypocrisy and prejudice prevalent in the nice quiet suburbs, but I was more aware now of the completely apathetic, lethargic state that most people seemed to be in about world conditions.

“Couldn’t they see what was going on? Didn’t they know what was so wrong in the world? How could they just do nothing, not even think? I had to be where people were at least trying to find answers, even if their way seemed strange to outsiders.

“I can authoritatively say that this is what causes most of these young people to embark on this course, because I was a hippie. Greenwich Village, Haight-Ashbury, and a Hopi Indian reservation were among my homes.

“My involvement with drugs and the so-called ‘hippie life’ was not a ‘phase’ as my parents wanted to believe. Nor was it a weekend trip. I was totally immersed in the philosophy and habits of the hippie generation.

“Although my smoking marijuana started when I was 16, the disenchantment with authorities, parents, religion or anything ‘Establishment’ had already taken place. I had been active in our church and met with the assistant minister about my questions and doubts. I did not get any reasonable answers.

“So I turned my back on all religion and decided to ‘get the most out of life.’ Nothing meant anything anymore, and experience was the thing​—the ‘god.’ I was searching, but I didn’t know what for.”

Her explanation is not at all unusual. You will find that it is common to many who become hippies.

However, some claim that world conditions have always been this way, so why should there be any more reason for people to become hippies than in the past? But world conditions have NOT always been this way. Never in the history of man has there been a century so filled with trouble as the one you are living in. As Mr. Justice Jackson said at the Nuremberg trial of Nazi war criminals:

“Two World Wars have left a legacy of dead which number more than all the armies engaged in any war that made ancient or medieval history. No half-century ever witnessed slaughter on such a scale, such cruelties and inhumanities, such wholesale deportations of peoples into slavery, such annihilations of minorities.”

Mankind’s problems have increased since Mr. Jackson said those words. As you know, it is now within the capacity of man to annihilate human life. And poverty, hunger, social unrest, racial and national hatreds, pollution, overpopulation and other problems are not diminishing at all. They are growing.

Worldwide Movement

It is not just a few people who are distressed by world conditions and who reject today’s society. They are to be found throughout the entire world, and in significant numbers. A writer in the Detroit News noted that there was never another time in history “in which the brightest kids in every nation on earth looked around them at the same time and said the hell with all of it.”

Mankind has never seen such an agony-filled century. Only those asleep to the facts deny it. But many are not asleep. This is why it can be said that not in the memory of living man has there been such a worldwide revulsion against the established way of life. A writer for the German magazine Der Spiegel said: “This applies to Capitalist countries as well as those professing state socialism.” He also noted: “Perhaps it derives its motivation from a deep-rooted weakness in the fabric of our civilization.”

Thus, increasing numbers of people everywhere, especially the young, are showing their disgust with this present system of things. Therefore, it is not strange that one form of this disillusionment should be the hippie movement.

But have not parents in our time given their children more of the better things of life than they had when they were young? True, in many lands the young today have better food, finer homes and more education than their parents had. Yet, the hippie movement is strongest where the living standard has improved!

Materialism

Since “middle-class” children are usually better educated, they are often more aware of world conditions. Their youthful idealism enables them to focus on the vital questions of the day. Also, they have not been so concerned with food, shelter and clothing as children from poor families; so they are more able to think of other problems.

However, the very improvement in a family’s living standard is part of the “deep-rooted weakness in the fabric of our civilization,” as Der Spiegel put it. What does material well-being have to do with many young people becoming hippies? One hippie from California well expressed their attitude. She had come from a family that lived in a $50,000 house, and she had her own inheritance. Of her parents she remarked:

“They gave me everything I wanted. I had my own car. But it was all so phony. Everything revolved around money. . . . So I just flipped out.”

Thus, to the dismay of their parents, many youths refuse to accept cold material riches as a substitute for the warmth of parental love, attention and leadership.

Hippies often are the products of parents who went without material things during the struggles of the Depression years after the economic “crash” of 1929. These parents were determined that their children would have ‘all the things we were denied when we were growing up.’ This was very noble, but often their quest for money was at the expense of time that should have been spent with children in their formative years.

Thus, hippies grew up in an acquisitive society. Money was made the god. In the rush, too many children got too much materially. To complicate the situation, permissiveness was the rule. Discipline became old-fashioned, or there just was no time for it. The main emphasis was on bettering one’s position in life.

Commenting on the hippie problem in Toronto, a Toronto Daily Star reporter said:

“The hippie movement is a forcible reminder of what we sometimes forget: Better housing, more jobs, higher education, cannot in themselves bring healing to people who have found life in the 60’s empty and inhumane. Only a reversal of values, in which men are accepted​—in fact loved—​unconditionally, will make life worth living.”

A New Society Wanted

So, to most hippies a new society is needed. They reject a money- and position-oriented society that tramples its fellowman instead of loving him. They reject a world in which there is so much hypocrisy, dishonesty, phoniness and inequality. As one writer put it: “The hippies hope to generate an entirely new society, one rich in spiritual grace that will revive the old virtues of agape [principled love] and reverence.”

Hippies do not see that any reform of the present order will accomplish this. So they feel that the way to individual freedom from society is to reject it and break its rules. They feel that there must be a liberation from the enslavement to materialism so that they can enjoy the simpler things of life, its beauty and pleasantness.

Therefore, money and work, associated in the minds of hippies with a corrupt commercial system, have been challenged as false gods. As one Canadian hippie leader stated: “Work isn’t everything, work isn’t holy.” They feel that work should be done when and if one wishes, at his own pace.

In the hippie world there would be little private ownership. All that is held would be for the benefit of the group. Even children “would be the responsibility of everyone, not only of the blood mother and father.”

In the hippie society marriage contracts could exist, but if one decided he wanted another partner he could “marry” that one too. Freedom to have sex relations with anyone is really their accepted standard.

Are many of these ideas shocking to you? Does the hippie rejection of all authority disturb you? Are you dismayed by their belief in having sexual relations with anyone they choose? Does their marijuana smoking and drug-taking seem too much?

To most persons, particularly the older generation, the hippie philosophy is extremely radical, unacceptable. Can you not hear some older persons saying: ‘Why, where did they get those foolish ideas?’

Well, just where do you think they got their ideas? Who is greatly responsible for their beliefs and behavior?

You Reap What You Sow

MANY persons disapprove of the hippies’ drug-taking, their loose sexual conduct and their rejection of authority. They feel that this is going too far.

But where did the young get these ideas? Well, what example have they had? Remember, a Bible principle says: “Whatever a man is sowing, this he will also reap.”​—Gal. 6:7.

Now, then, who first sowed disrespect for authority? What kind of respect for authority was built when nations scrapped peace treaties and took to slaughtering one another, including innocent women and children? What kind of example was it for the young to have their elders begin wars that in just this century killed and injured 100 million persons?

Does it build respect for authority when young people see those in high places lie, cheat and steal? Will the concerned, intelligent young respect the authority that often allows millionaires to go tax-free, but people living in what is considered poverty having to pay tax?

What of respect for the highest authority​—God? Who has taken the lead in belittling his supremacy and authority, his right laws and principles? Who in recent decades has robbed youth of solid belief in this Supreme Authority? Who has promoted the evolution theory that makes God “unnecessary”?

The Example

You know that it is not the young who set the example. It is the older generation that does so. Sadly, they have set a pitiful example. They have disrespected all kinds of authority themselves. World leaders have often trampled on international law and disrespected the rights of others.

Educators and even clergymen have promoted the evolution theory, as, of course, have scientists. This theory makes God “unnecessary.” Hence, it undermines his authority. Too, many clergymen have destroyed the Bible in the eyes of the young. They have belittled it and called parts of it myth and legend. If parts of it are not to be believed, then the young wonder why they should believe any of it. And why, they reason, should they then adhere to the Bible’s counsel to respect law and authority, both man’s and God’s?

Once the older generation embarked upon the road of rejection of law and authority, particularly God’s, it was a simple matter for youth to imitate their example. After all, if God, His Word the Bible, and international law can be rejected by older persons, then the young have little incentive to respect lesser authorities such as parents and local officials.

Yes, the older generation has sowed disrespect for authority. They are now reaping​—with interest, for their own authority is being rejected by their young.

Moral Values

The hippies advocate “free sex.” But is this a new idea? Who first cast aside the moral standards of the Bible? Typical of the attitude of many adults was that of a highly regarded “intellectual” who declared: “We objected to the Bible’s morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.”

Many investigations have revealed that a high percentage of adults, including fathers and mothers, engage in fornication and adultery. Residents of suburbia have indulged in various forms of “wife swapping.”

Are not hippies reflecting in an open manner what many adults thus do, or advocate, in a more “sophisticated” way? The loose sex lives of adults who put on a veneer of propriety is surely not missed by today’s alert youth. Often the hippies’ utter frankness in speech and conduct is an expression of their contempt for the hypocrisy of adults.

Too, the adult world promotes movies, television shows and stage plays that make heroes out of actors and actresses who lead immoral lives. Is this calculated to improve youthful respect for morality? And the contents of many of these shows​—do they not tend to demoralize their youthful viewers?

What of smoking marijuana? Well, who has promoted the smoking of cigarettes? This has been pushed into the minds of young people all their lives by adults, through films, advertisements and by adult example. And since harmful cigarettes continue to be smoked by adults, the young feel that there is not that much difference in smoking marijuana.

They also reason that their use of drugs is not that much different from the use by adults of all sorts of pills to have their tensions and troubles eased. Consider, too, the adult overindulgence in alcoholic beverages. Too much alcohol produces effects not unlike that produced by some drugs. So if adults can get “high,” the young say, why not their offspring?

Example of Clergy

The efforts of many clergymen to become more acceptable by becoming “modern,” excusing or even recommending fornication, adultery, homosexuality and drug-taking, backfire. Recently when some young people were asked why they no longer go to church, one replied:

“I was in one group where the minister kept telling us about all the people he knew who smoked ‘pot.’ The kids laughed at him behind his back. They thought he was a phony. A minister should be a person who feels strongly about the existence of God and the moral laws we should follow.”​—Toronto Daily Star, March 8, 1969.

Hence, many young people today simply do not respect the orthodox religions as earlier generations did. Hippies feel that the “golden rule,” doing to others as you would have them do to you, is not practiced by pharisaical clergymen who “say but do not perform.” (Matt. 23:3) As one hippie told an interviewer: “A bishop is about the furthest from God that I can imagine one being. You didn’t see Jesus walking around in velvet robes while the people starved.”

Yet, with all of this professed idealism, are hippies building a better society for themselves? Do they have the answers to the problems plaguing mankind? Do they improve their happiness?

Hippies ‘Tell It like It Is’

HAVE the hippies found the answers? Has their way of life proved to be the way to happiness? Are their dealings with one another genuinely loving and upbuilding? What are they reaping from the life they have sown?

You will find it of interest to hear what persons who have been hippies say. They can ‘tell it like it is.’ Of course, not all have had the same experiences. However, the following are quite representative of what many have said.

Finding the Answers?

One young woman in the United States entered the hippie movement with the same idealism as others. She wanted answers. Listen to her experience as told to Awake! magazine:

“What we were all really doing at first was trying to find the answers to the staggering problems of life. In this quest I became involved in drugs and sex worship. Later on I became even more involved with the occult, with mysticism and demonism.

“Yet, with all of this, nothing made any sense. Through my so-called ‘guru’ I got more involved in the mystic and occult and drug-taking. I found, however, that it was all getting harder to take. I began to feel such deep depression that I had to control the urge to jump off a bridge more than once.

“Many of my friends were now heroin addicts and alcoholics. One used a dirty needle when taking dope and gangrene set in, with blood poisoning. He almost died. Another finally got a gun and shot himself. He just couldn’t cope with it all, particularly the spiritistic forces working on us.

“This really shook me up. I felt that I couldn’t take this life anymore, as it was definitely not providing the answers I was searching for. I had ‘had it’ with these so-called ‘holy men.’”

No, she did not find the answers for which she was searching. Nor did the hippie way lead to a better life for her. It brought neither happiness nor hope for the future.

Materialism, Hypocrisy

A young man from California who was a hippie for years also was looking for the answers and a better way of life. He was ‘fed up’ with the materialism and hypocrisy of society. He says:

“Sure I tried drugs​—every one on the market. I let my hair grow down to the middle of my back. I wore gold earrings, a beard​—the whole bit.

“There was so much lack of concern by others for young people. Kids today are fed up with the system. That’s why they take drugs​—it’s an escape. They see the people around them ruining the earth and the water by polluting if and not caring that they do it. Their hang-up is the hypocrisy of today’s world.”

Yet, after more than five years of living as a hippie, what did he observe among their ranks? He states:

“The hippie is just as hypocritical as the people he criticizes. Materialism is as bad in the hippie movement as it is elsewhere. The hippie talks about love, but he doesn’t mean it or practice it in the Biblical sense. It is mostly sex​—in fact, sex worship. They didn’t really care about anybody else.”

A dictionary defines materialism as “the doctrine that self-interest is and ought to be the first law of life.” So it is materialistic, or selfish, to think primarily of one’s own desires.

Do hippies think primarily of their own desires? Well, do they not abandon responsibility to parents and others, regardless of the effect it has? Do they not often selfishly break the hearts of their parents who, with all of their faults, have usually worked hard to rear their children? Do not hippies selfishly indulge themselves to gratify every whim of passion? And nowhere is this selfishness more evident than in their desire for drugs.

From Drugs to Where?

Many hippies have a continual problem trying to get enough drugs. Drugs are expensive. It takes money to buy them.

To get drugs, some hippies resort to begging on the streets. Others acknowledge that they steal to get the money. Some have talked the women with whom they live into engaging in acts of prostitution to make the money. What is the frenzy to acquire drugs, if not rank materialism?

Smoking marijuana is only the first step. Very often it leads to the use of stronger drugs. What does this lead to? Finding answers? Uplift? Happiness? An improved way of life? A writer who posed as a hippie and lived with them wrote about his experience in Look magazine. It is similar to what many hippies and former hippies admit is the truth. He stated of the “pad” where he lived:

“Rick and Kathy’s place was a filthy, litter-strewn, swarming dope fortress that was a great deal less savory and sanitary than a sewer, since people attempted to live in it. Along the hallway when we walked in there were at least a half-dozen hippies lying in various stages of drug stupor. And in the darkened bedrooms, blank-faced males and females sat stupefied on the floors as rock music howled full volume from radios and hundreds of flies churned through layers of sweet-smelling marijuana smoke. . . .

“[One hippie] was so stoned when he arrived that he was talking in a whiny, scary falsetto voice​—yet whatever he had been taking still wasn’t enough. Around five a.m., I woke up briefly to catch sight of him . . . shooting sugared water into the veins of his neck, since he had run out of real drugs as well as available places to stick the needle. Each time he injected himself, he would moan, ‘Ooooohhh, oooohhh, this is my thing . . . this is my thing,’ and would ‘freak out’ by rolling around the floor, thrashing and flopping and hooting like an owl.”

Hippies rightly criticize those in society who make money their god, who pursue materialistic things. But the frenzied pursuit of drugs by many hippies is every bit as materialistic, perhaps even more so. And the results?

A doctor at San Francisco’s General Hospital estimated that the hospital admitted fifteen to twenty drug-deranged patients weekly. He said: “Users come in here sleep-deprived, malnourished and often with needle diseases . . . . Many users develop respiratory diseases because of malnutrition.” A California attorney general revealed: “Every 60 hours someone in the Haight-Ashbury district dies tragically because of drugs.”

Even those who escape immediate tragic consequences must yet face the possible long-term effects of taking drugs. One of these effects from LSD has been described as “chromosome breakage” in body cells. It may occur, it is reported, “after only one or two uses . . . . Such breakage, experiments show, could cause subsequent children of the users to be born abnormal, retarded or both.”

Neighbor Love?

Love for one’s fellow human ranks high in hippie philosophy. But what happens in actual practice? Is it really love for one person to supply another with drugs, as hippies do for each other? How many minds are broken and deranged by drugs? How many bodies are shattered and worn down? Methedrine, LSD, peyote, heroin and other drugs are pushed by hippies. But they turn their backs in helplessness or lack of concern when a fellow hippie’s mind begins to turn to jelly from taking them.

Also, what kind of “love” is “free sex”? One girl of sixteen explained that she did not mind giving herself to different men, saying: “It’s quite a common thing.” But what are the by-products of this promiscuous life? In addition to jealousies, bitterness and hatreds aroused among themselves, there comes the disastrous spread of venereal disease. Unscrupulous, selfish characters drift among the hippies looking for “free sex.” They leave a trail of infected persons behind.

Exposing her grave lack of knowledge of the real dangers of venereal disease, one hippie naïvely told a reporter: “It happens. That’s the chance you take with free love. So, you go to a clinic and get rid of it.” Many, to their sorrow, are now finding out that a permanent cure is not that easy.

The American ambassador to Afghanistan, Robert Neumann, said of the hippies in Kabul: “They are destroying themselves in Afghanistan. There is suicide, horrible sanitation, disease. They live in hovels.” Does all of this sound like the product of genuine neighbor love?

‘Like It Is’

Persons may be drawn to the hippie movement in a sincere search for happiness, for answers to life’s problems, for freedom. But the facts argue that what they are finding is far from this. Their search has led to much unhappiness, no answers, and even enslavement​—to drugs, one’s own passions, as well as to the hippie ‘Establishment.’

One reporter in Haight-Ashbury said: “Some of the hippies wandering around look more careworn, more concerned, less happy than the stockbrokers on Montgomery Street whom they profess to scorn.” Another said: “The Haight-Ashbury, once the citadel of love, . . . now is a ghost town, a city of fear, of rape, murder, assault, robbery.”

Thus, ‘telling it like it is,’ a reporter said: “Few found what they came for . . . most of them found instead a paradise lost, filled with drugs and dirt and screams of misery.”

No one can blame persons for wanting a better system of things, since this one is in horrible condition. But is the answer a way of life that does not improve matters, often making them worse? The experiences of those who have been hippies and who ‘tell it like it is’ show that the answer must be, No.

But then, what is the answer to life’s problems? Will this corrupt system of things always prevail the way it now does so that young people have little hope for the future? Just where can an honest, sincere person turn for genuine happiness now and a solid hope for the future?

Hippies Who Have Found the Answers

WHATEVER happens to the hippie movement, several things are clear. The troubles that gave birth to it have not disappeared. They have grown worse. And the hippie movement has not brought true hope and happiness within its own ranks.

Yet, no one can deny that there is a great need for genuine peace, happiness and love for one’s fellowman. Honesthearted persons rightly want, and need, a much better world.

What are the answers? Should we try to reform this present wicked system of things? Should we work through political, economic and orthodox religions to try to ‘create a better world’?

These may seem like noble goals to you. But you can be assured that efforts along these lines will not succeed. Remember, such things have been tried for centuries by the “wisest” men this world has produced. Nearly every conceivable idea originated by men has been tried. The tragic conditions throughout the world cry out that they have not worked. All such ideas are now part of the huge wreckage pile of human failures.

The System with the Answers

However, there is a system of government that right now is bringing genuine peace to people from all races and nationalities! It is replacing prejudice and hate with equality and love. It is influencing persons from all walks of life to live together as brothers.

This new system is no part of the hypocrisy and lies of this world. It guides its subjects so that they are not trapped by materialism, while still providing decently for themselves and their families. And instead of family ties breaking down, it teaches them how to strengthen family ties with bonds of love and mutual respect.

In addition, this extraordinary government has the power, the right, and the determination to wipe out all that is wrong. It is certain to bring about a completely new order where peace, justice and brotherly love will be the rule. In that new order extremes of rich and poor will disappear. Sickness and death will be wiped out, never again to plague mankind. And the literal earth will even be made a paradise for all to enjoy.

“Is such a system of government possible?” you may ask. Not only is it possible, but whether you realize it or not it is already in operation! Those who come under its rule are learning the right answers to the many problems plaguing mankind today. Millions of persons, including many hippies, are now learning these answers.

HIPPIE GIRL FINDS ANSWERS

A girl deeply immersed in the hippie movement tells how she found the answers to the troublesome questions of our day. She writes:

“One day one of Jehovah’s witnesses called and left some literature explaining the Bible. She arranged to call again. But I was not at all interested in the Bible. As far as I was concerned, her religion was like all the others that I had investigated in college and found to be simply traditions that men had made up.

“Well, I could hardly believe it, but this Witness had the answers right from the Bible for every question of mine. However, I told her that I didn’t believe the Bible, so she showed me why the Bible is true. She showed me such things as recent archaeological discoveries, confirmation that the account of Noah and the Flood were true, also prophecies about our day and others such as those about the life and birth of Jesus, and how all these were fulfilled.

“I tested her by having my ‘guru’ sit in on the discussions one night, and also a Black Muslim friend of mine. Throughout it all, her sincerity was pure and her faith unshakable. She was no phony, as were so many other persons I had known. This was what I saw in her and the other Witnesses I met later. You could see she really felt love for us. Believe me, that is rare in the environment such as I was in, which was without natural affection. And the complete impartiality she showed to all my friends without judging them or being scornful made it obvious that Jehovah’s witnesses were not prejudiced.

“All these things whetted my curiosity and helped me to continue studying the Bible, even when ridiculed by my friends and scorned by my relatives. But, as the Bible says, ‘by their fruits you will know them.’ It was certainly true that Jehovah’s witnesses lived what they preached. No one else did that! Certainly not the ‘flower children’ with whom I had associated.

“After several months of study, I left the hippie environment. I could see that they did not have the answers, although many sincerely were searching for them. I am now making a new life. There is a change in me that I never dreamed possible.

“I have constantly in my heart the message that has stuck with me from the beginning of my studying. What is that? It is the scripture recorded in the Bible at John 8:32, which says: ‘You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’”

HIPPIE COUPLE FINDS ANSWERS

A couple in California had been hippies for years, the man being “hooked” on methedrine. He explains:

“We’ve found something better. One night a couple came to the door. They were Jehovah’s witnesses. What they said began to make sense. I had tried all the [orthodox] religions to some extent. I found what they taught was shallow.

“The Bible answers all questions. The Scriptures now make sense to me and I’m learning more every day. . . . The Bible makes clear what man’s purpose on this earth is.

“As I began to learn more about the Bible and more about the Witnesses, I began to realize that they have a genuine love for people. Honestly, my hippie life​—a real experience—​made me appreciate Jehovah’s witnesses all the more.”

This couple continued to make fine progress in their search for the truth. Like the girl noted previously, they became convinced of the answers, and are now helping others to learn them.

SUICIDE NO ANSWER

A hippie couple living in a resort area in the western part of the United States was called on by Jehovah’s witnesses. One of the Witnesses writes:

“This being a tourist area we have many hippies around, especially in the winter. We have found many that have become interested in the real peace taught in the Bible. One was a married couple.

“This couple was very despondent. After talking to them for a while we found that they, and others like them, were searching very hard to find out why world conditions were the way they were.

“Not knowing the Bible answers, the couple had turned to LSD, marijuana and other drugs. They also turned to the ‘Ouija’ board for answers. The board told them that they should kill themselves!

“Not wanting to live in this perplexed world any longer, they decided to take their lives. They were afraid to die but thought it was the only way out. They decided to take a large bottle of aspirin. They each took half the bottle and laid down on the floor to die.

“But they did not take quite enough. The next day they woke up very sick and not being able to hear. This was all such a horrible experience that they did not want to try it again. At this time the woman decided to pray to God ‘if there was one.’ She prayed for Him to show them the answers to the many questions that troubled them.

“They were called on the next day by Jehovah’s witnesses. They immediately took to the Bible truth, studying almost every night. They changed their lives completely and were baptized at an assembly later.”

“CHAIN REACTION”

Another hippie, a young man living in Ohio, attended an assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses. The person familiar with the experience tells about it:

“He was obviously identified with the ‘hippie’ movement, fully in harmony with the philosophy of rebellion against society. Immediately after his attendance at the assembly, a Bible study was begun with him and he began attending the meetings of Jehovah’s witnesses at the local Kingdom Hall.

“Soon, he had shaved, cut his hair, and gotten his suits out of mothballs. By that time he was convinced thoroughly of the Bible’s authenticity, and that if anyone taught the truth of the Bible it was Jehovah’s witnesses.

“The results during this period of time have been a chain reaction that has resulted in eight new Bible studies, all with young people. Another young man attended an assembly to see what could possibly have caused such a radical change in the first man. He too had hair down to his shoulders, a full beard, and a typical hippie style of dress.

“He was favorably impressed at the assembly with the way he was treated and by the information he heard. He immediately began studying with the Witnesses and attending every meeting of the local congregation. He also recognized that much in Christendom was not Christian.

“In two months, the clarity of Bible teachings caused him to shave his beard, cut his hair, and clothe himself in an appropriate manner. And through his activity, four Bible studies have been started with young people.”

These experiences are not unusual. Others like them come to our attention regularly. Of course, since we have highlighted the hippie movement in this issue of Awake! we have confined the experiences to some who had been hippies.

However, persons from all walks of life, from all races and nationalities, are learning of the Bible’s promises. They are finding the answers. They are learning of that new government that is having such a profound influence for good in the lives of people today, and that will usher in a completely new order for all the earth soon.

God’s Word the Bible tells us about this government. It is the government that Jesus Christ told his followers to pray for when he said: “Let your kingdom come. Let your will take place, as in heaven, also upon earth.” (Matt. 6:10) God’s kingdom is a real government established in heaven. And all the evidence in fulfillment of Bible prophecy shows that it is already operating, directing its attention to earth.

Kingdom to Crush Wickedness

It is not God’s purpose to have his heavenly government convert this wicked system of things. Instead, the Bible foretold: “In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be brought to ruin. And the kingdom itself will not be passed on to any other people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it itself will stand to times indefinite.”​—Dan. 2:44.

This crushing blow will accomplish two major things: it will rid the entire earth of every person and every thing that is bad; but it will preserve those honesthearted persons who do what is right in God’s sight. The Bible shows: “The upright are the ones that will reside in the earth, and the blameless are the ones that will be left over in it. As regards the wicked, they will be cut off from the very earth; and as for the treacherous, they will be torn away from it.”​—Prov. 2:21, 22; see also Zephaniah 2:3.

Then, God’s kingdom will be the only government. It will be in complete control of the entire earth. It will usher in a new order that will see the fulfillment of this grand promise: “[God] will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be any more. The former things have passed away.”​—Rev. 21:4.

Gigantic Teaching Program Under Way

When on earth, Jesus Christ spoke a prophecy about a worldwide preaching work: “This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.”​—Matt. 24:14.

In harmony with this, hundreds of thousands of people throughout the earth are learning about God’s kingdom. They are lining up their lives with its requirements, becoming its loyal subjects. In more than a million homes in 203 lands and islands Jehovah’s witnesses are having weekly Bible studies with interested persons.​—Isa. 2:2-4; Matt. 6:33.

This Bible-study program is of gigantic magnitude and growing rapidly each year. It is by far the largest such program in the history of the world. But then, this was to be expected. Did not Jesus say that the good news about God’s kingdom would have to be preached earth wide before the end came?

One of the aids that Jehovah’s witnesses have found so valuable in assisting others to understand the Bible is the 192-page book The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life. Published in dozens of languages, it has already had the widest distribution of any Bible-study aid in history. In fact, according to a published report about “best sellers” in the Western world, it has become the “best seller” of any book in all history for the length of time that it has been distributed! Over 23,000,000 copies have been published in about a year and a half!

In addition, among other literature, Jehovah’s witnesses printed more than 325 million copies of their magazines in just the past year. These call attention to God’s kingdom, The Watchtower being published in seventy-two languages, and Awake! in twenty-six. The printing of these magazines increased more than 50 million over the previous year!

What effect is this gigantic Bible educational work having? In just the past year over 120,000 persons took up the work of teaching others God’s purposes! These new ones joined the one and a quarter million of Jehovah’s witnesses already teaching the Bible. This amazing increase of Bible teachers comes at the very time that the ranks of Christendom’s clergy are decreasing due to clergymen quitting and a constant drop in seminary enrollment.

Are you acquainted with God’s marvelous remedy for the many problems facing mankind today? Do you sincerely yearn for true peace and happiness, perfect health and eternal life on a paradise earth? If so, then you will want to learn about the Bible’s promises.

Jehovah’s witnesses will be happy to use their time free of charge to show you how to get the right answers from your own Bible. For about one hour a week, over a six-month period, they will call on you to share with you the knowledge of what God is doing now and will do in the future for mankind. Write the publishers of this magazine, or contact Jehovah’s witnesses at a Kingdom Hall near you and a qualified Bible teacher will be sent.

In this way you can join the swiftly growing number of people all over the world who have come to appreciate the urgency of the times. You will then fully understand what the Bible means when it says: “The world is passing away and so is its desire, but he that does the will of God remains forever.”​—1 John 2:17.